Chicken-fried chicken with peanut soy

2 hours + marinating overnight + chilling

Serves 2

A little effort

Check out this flavour-packed crispy chicken with sticky peanut sauce from Scott Hallsworth's Asian restaurant, Freak Scene in Soho. The team at Freak Scene fry the chicken in rendered chicken fat, but duck fat is easier to get hold of and will give you a similar result

Method

Step 1

Put the salt, chillies, garlic, coriander, lemongrass and peanut oil into a food processor and whizz to a purée. Put the chicken into a container and pour over the salt mixture, rubbing it in well. Cover and chill overnight.

Step 2

Rinse the marinade off the chicken and pat really dry with kitchen paper. Put the chicken legs into a small pan so that they fit really snugly and add enough duck fat to completely cover the chicken. Use a thermometer to bring the fat up to 90C and keep it there, cooking gently for 1½ hours until very tender. Remove from the fat, cool and chill until completely cold. Allow the duck fat to cool completely then push through a fine sieve and reserve for later.

Step 3

Warm the rice vinegar, sugar, lemon zest and 1 tbsp salt in a pan until the sugar and salt has dissolved, then cool. Put the cucumber slices into a bowl and pour over the pickling liquid. Leave for 30 minutes before draining to serve.

Step 4

For the peanut soy, finely chop the peanuts, then mix with the kecap manis and dried chilli flakes.

Step 5

Fill a pan no more than 1/3 full with the reserved duck fat and heat to 160C or until a cube of bread browns in 45 seconds. Fry the chicken legs, one at a time, for 5 minutes or until deeply golden and crisp. Drain on kitchen paper and keep warm in a low oven while you fry the other.

Step 6

Spoon a pool of peanut soy onto each plate, put a chicken leg on top with a generous pile of cucumbers, a lemon wedge and some coriander leaves.